The young man, with his bare hands clenched into fists, wanted to smack the head of the old, hobo-looking man who was calling out to him. A few people who saw him immediately followed him, and the three elders standing together were charming. It didn't take an oracle to realize they were going to die with a punch.
These must have been the Fallen ones mentioned in the inscription, and I opened my eyes wide to watch the clash of two groups with my excitement at the height of the last ten steps. The group of assailants was within the last five steps when I caught sight of the raising of the head of one of the three elders who had been silent before.
"You did me wrong!"
A short sentence came out of his mouth, and you could hear this classic statement as you passed by every tavern or a group sipping their drinks in a corner. At the same time, the crowd led by the young man would stop before he could take another step. Their eyes were in amazement as if they wanted to go forward but could not do so.
"You did me wrong!"
"You did me wrong!"
"You did me wrong!"
As the three elders slowly stood up and walked towards the petrified people, the exact words were always on their mouths. For this reason, those who tried to make a move to escape backward at the last moment could not get away with it.
I was watching with all my attention. Those who greedily and ruthlessly flocked to the three older men, whom they saw as the only means of salvation, were caught in a kind of trap. I could vaguely make out the image of a brand-name wine bottle above their heads while the trio circulated among themselves, repeating the exact words over and over.
About half an hour passed like this, and the people in the group, whose mobility I was sure was now restricted under the influence, were flushed, and rivers of cold sweat were running down their heads. An hour later, the first death occurred; someone who could not bear this torture fell to the ground like an empty sack, causing a small cloud of dust to rise.
It was as if the first drop of rain had fallen on the ground as soon as the other members of the hostile community fell from their branches like ripe plums.
All but one person in the large group was on the ground, and that was all; some of them had disappeared as if they had never existed. The young man, who unintentionally became the leader of those behind him, resisted the mob named Hangover, although he was breathing heavily.
"You did me wrong!"
"You did me wrong!"
"You did me wrong!"
Three old farts were gathered together, making him a tormented feast with drunken conversations over the trembling boy. He couldn't stand it for long, and he fell to the ground over his mouth to share the same end with those running behind him.
"Young friend, don't you want to join us? We have a piece of bread and a bottle of wine that we will be happy to share with everyone!"
It wasn't even ten seconds after it all ended when I witnessed one of the elders turn to me and call; at that moment, I could feel my guts twitching with fear. I immediately looked around, not believing that their target was myself because I was still inside the protective shield.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
When did I emerge from the icy blue veil? I quickly turned around and saw that I was already three feet out of the containment zone. No matter how immersed I was in the events I was watching, I had made a fatal mistake without even realizing it.
"You did wrong to me!"
"You did wrong to me!"
"You did wrong to me!"
It couldn't be; he had just moved on to the second part of his triple attacks, whose offers were rejected while I had just taken my first step. With crazy questions in my head, I tried to lift my feet to take my second step; I had to flee, or I would have ended up like dozens of people who had just been destroyed by soul-depressing torture.
I closed my eyes and tried to run, focusing all my strength on my feet, not wanting to experience the eight hours of torture before I had studied enough yet. I had to run; that was the only command my brain was sending to my body, to live, not die.
"Slow down, friend!"
"What's your hurry?"
"Look ahead, bear!"
I would keep bumping into a hard object after losing consciousness by falling into the clutches of fear, so when I fell to the ground, I was able to open my eyes with courage again and see what was going on. People surrounded me, and all of them, without exception, made me say whatever came to their minds; oddly enough, most of them had fallen to the ground like me.
I jumped up in a panic and went around like crazy to understand where I was; with the last thing I saw, I felt like a ton of weight had been released from my back.
Just as I was in the grip of fear now, I bumped into people standing at the far end of the area where the inscriptions were and waiting in line to advance inside.
"Sorry!"
"I'm so sorry to all of you!"
Immediately, I slipped out, asking the people I had hurt to forgive me. I had gotten away with death this time; how could I care about such a minor accident.
Ignoring the growls behind me, I diverted my course to where I first awoke; the protection area was separated from the Fallen by a four-colored shield, which means different mobs could be in other colored regions.
At my first destination, where I returned in line with my purpose, I was greeted by a shield rising from the ground like a yellow tulle and merging with the other color on the ceiling. This place was located right next to the area where the alcohol-based Fallen were and could even be viewed from both sides if you stood right where they were in contact with each other.
I would come across the scenery that I would be amazed by in one of the mentioned places. The two areas were bordered by each other, and the mobs were approaching almost two inches apart, but they certainly did not cross into each other's place.
I had learned of an unwritten rule: the Fallen had their territory and certainly did not interfere with one another's domains.
Otherwise, everything would be messed up right now because the Fallen in the yellow area were the types that could cause trouble not only here but also on Earth.
"Glue-sniffer LVL 1!"
"Thinner addict LVL 1!"
"Lighter Gas addict LVL 1!
Now you understand why, next to the lands where alcohol reigned, mobs were living under the captivity of synthetic substances. Even behind the shield, they had goosebumps auras, like a picture of madness blending with fear, with people screaming around them joining the image.
I could not witness how the chaos started in this region, but looking at the scenery in front of me, I could tell that the people they had trapped were in a deep-seated fear.
There was a black face on the top of their heads, and the most distinctive feature of this vague face was its mouth opened as if to scream. Like the people in the icy blue region, they were under some influence and lost control over their bodies.
Not an hour had passed when I started to relive the events I had witnessed before. The people who fell to the ground like puppies with the rope cut off were disappearing in a short time.
This time I was very cautious, not failing to look around me every thirty seconds to manage to keep myself inside the shield. The grasshopper jumped once; even though I have one more right according to the proverb, I didn't think to use it right now.
I turned around, not knowing whether to look at the shops by the inscription or examine the remaining two areas. It had only been two hours, but if my eyes were not deceiving me, the crowd inside the shield was only half the size of the previous one.